Green Bay’s Randall Cobb looks to define the NFL’s ‘four-tool’ player

Sports Stats ‘on Tapp’ is a sports statistics blog published with a focus on stats that go beyond the numbers.

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Does the NFL have its version of a “five-tool” player?

If you are a baseball fan, you know about the five-tool player. It’s that player who can hit for average, hit for power, has outstanding fielding skills, a great arm and fantastic speed.

Maybe the NFL doesn’t have its own version of the five-tool player, but the league may want to figure out what to call a player like Randall Cobb.

Cobb last season achieved something that had never been done before in league history: Cobb in 2012 had 10 rushing attempts, caught 80 passes, returned 31 punts and returned 38 kickoffs. No one had those number of touches in each of those four stat categories in the history of the NFL. It’s not uncommon to have heard announcers, Packers coaches, and his teammates refer to Cobb as a player that “needs to have the ball in his hands.”

To get a look at other players who may have approached what Cobb did last season, I dropped the number requirements down a bit to see how many players would fit in the category of 10 rushing attempts, 50 receptions, 20 punt returns and 20 kickoff returns. What I discovered was that Cobb was the ninth player to reach these numbers. Here’s a look at the players who fit those stats:

Cobb in 2012 amassed 132 yards rushing, 954 receiving yards, 292 punt return yards and 964 kickoff return yards. With his 2,342 yards via rushing, receiving and kick returns, Cobb became the 34th player in NFL history to have over 2,300 all-purpose yards in a season.

In addition, Cobb became the seventh player in NFL history to have over 1,000 yards from scrimmage and over 1,000 yards in kick return yardage in the same season. Those players: